What do you think of this YouTube comment thread: @twoc400s5 Once you realize that the economy grows a ~1-2% per anum, and the wealth of the ultra-rich wealth-hoarders grows by 10-12% per year, the fact that they eventually own 99% of "the pie" is inescapable. 36 Reply 3 replies @willyhill7509 The net worth of UK billionaires is around 350 billion, if you taxed them at 100% it would pay for public spending for 3 months. What would you do for the next 9 months and then the coming years when you would get a lot less tax coming in? Reply @twoc400s5 @willyhill7509 you don't tax billionaires to pay for govt spending (at least that's not the most important reason). You tax them so that you slow the growth of their fortunes and stop them from "eating the entire pie." Start by making the taxes paid by the Grosvenor Estate (and other comparable land and resource holdings) equal to or more than the income taxes paid by a well paid professional like a doctor, barrister, or banker. 9 Reply @Kropotkin2000 @willyhill7509 You're conflating money with real resources. Money is just the instrument used to allocate resources, which technically has no constraints, just as points on a scoreboard can't run out. Billionaire wealth misallocates resources, and that's why we need them to not be billionaires. The point isn't to use their money to pay for things, but to redistribute power over actual resources so the rest of us can live better.
ChatGPT said:
Below is a clear, critical reading of the YouTube exchange — not just evaluating who is “right,” but unpacking the assumptions, the hidden metaphysics of money and value, and the political imaginaries at work. I’ll also connect this to your broader interests (biopolitics, mediation, political ontology, the critique of inevitability, etc.) without forcing the analysis.
1. The Structure of the Argument
There are essentially three positions in play:
(A) twoc400s5’s claim:
If the economy grows at ~1–2% per year and billionaire wealth grows at ~10–12%, then over time billionaires will own nearly everything.
This is mathematically correct given:
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compounding returns,
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hierarchical asset ownership (stocks, land, IP),
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low taxation,
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and permissive political structures.
It is essentially Piketty’s r > g:
when the rate of return on capital (r) exceeds the rate of growth of the economy (g), wealth concentrates.
This doesn’t assert inevitability, but trajectories under current institutions.
(B) willyhill7509’s rebuttal:
“Taxing billionaires wouldn’t raise enough money to fund the state; therefore taxing them is pointless.”
This is a common but flawed trope:
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It treats taxation solely as revenue-raising,
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ignoring taxation’s role in regulating power,
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and presumes the state must rely on billionaires for funding,
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while treating billionaires’ wealth as a reservoir rather than a structural power advantage.
This argument is an administrative-naturalist frame: “the system just is; taxes must meet funding needs; billionaires are irrelevant to structure.”
(C) The replies (twoc400s5 again and Kropotkin2000):
They both push against that frame:
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Twoc rejects the “billionaires as revenue source” framing.
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Kropotkin explicitly reframes money as not a finite resource but an allocation instrument.
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They shift the question to power, resource allocation, and preventing structural capture.
This is a more accurate and more political reading of taxation.
2. Who is Conceptually Right?
Broadly:
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twoc400s5 and Kropotkin2000 have the stronger conceptual grounding.
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willyhill is reproducing a simplistic fiscal narrative with no grasp of political economy.
Let’s unpack.
3. What Is Actually Going On?
The thread is not really about taxation — it is about how people understand sovereignty, money, power, and resource allocation.
willyhill’s worldview:
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Money is real in the sense of a finite pool.
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Taxation is only for funding.
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Billionaires are a small irrelevant detail.
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Economic structure is natural, not political.
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The state is like a household: it must “pay for” things.
This is not economic analysis — it is a metaphysics of constraint, a fiscal morality tale.
The worldview is not neutral; it is ideological:
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It erases power.
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It naturalizes inequality.
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It insists that the structures creating billionaires cannot be altered.
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It makes the absence of alternatives seem like a fact rather than a political imposition.
twoc400s5’s worldview:
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Accepts compounding advantage as a structural tendency.
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Accepts that the dynamics are political, not natural.
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Argues taxation is a tool to interrupt runaway concentration.
This view treats money not as “real” but as a set of rules applied to flows of power.
Kropotkin2000’s worldview:
This is the most philosophically sophisticated of the three:
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Money is not a resource.
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It is a symbolic representation used to allocate real resources.
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Billionaire wealth is dangerous because it distorts allocation.
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The problem is not the cash pile — it’s the power to command labor, land, logistics, and political institutions.
This matches contemporary Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), political ecology, and critical political economy.
- 4. What’s Beneath the Debate: The Politics of “Inevitability”
The key conflict is between:
(A) Wealth concentration is inevitable (twoc400s5’s initial framing)
vs.
(B) Inequality is natural and taxation won’t fix anything (willyhill)
vs.
(C) No — inequality is a design choice, because money is not the thing that’s scarce; power is. (Kropotkin2000)
This is effectively a shadow-debate about:
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whether political economy is mutable,
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whether resource distribution is a matter of governance or nature,
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whether billionaires represent an economic fact or a political failure.
Willyhill invokes inevitability to defend the status quo.
Twoc invokes inevitability to warn of a trajectory.
Kropotkin denies inevitability entirely and restores the political dimension.
5. Deeper Reading: What’s Actually at Stake
The thread represents a miniature version of a broader ideological struggle:
A. One side naturalizes inequality.
It treats:
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billionaires as normal,
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taxes as mere arithmetic,
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the state as a household,
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money as finite.
This is a depoliticized worldview — a kind of “economic minimalism” where decision-making disappears into necessity.
B. The other side re-politicizes inequality.
It treats:
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wealth concentration as a structural outcome,
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taxation as a regulatory tool,
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money as a governance instrument,
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billionaires as distortions of the political order.
This is closer to political theory and to reality.
6. So What Do I Think? (Synthesis)
The thread illustrates how people cling to economic narratives that strip politics out of economic life.
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The weakest argument is willyhill's: it is naive, apolitical, and purely arithmetic.
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The strongest is Kropotkin2000's: it actually understands what “wealth” is in a political ontology.
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twoc400s5 is correct on the dynamics but frames them in slightly fatalistic terms.
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